Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/261

Rh a grand investment this. Two thousand pounds—it is a fine fortune, but we would be rich with nothing."

The square-hewn face softened and the flinty blue eye was misty as the captain bundled the notes into the wallet and stooped to open the little safe beneath the desk. The combination, always puzzling for him, was unusually tricky, and as he wrestled with it the speaking tube whistled near his ear.

"There's thick fog ahead, sir. We'll be into it before long," rumbled the voice of the chief officer from the bridge.

The captain hastily thrust the wallet into the top drawer of his desk, wriggled into a heavy reefer, and went on the bridge. A dense belt of darkness hung low ahead on the water and curtained the stars. Presently this barrier strangely streaking the clear sky was changed to dirty, gray clouds, then into blinking mist. Thus the fog shut down like wool.

The lamenting whistle of the Wasdale at once began to protest against this game of hide-and-seek. The bridge indicator signaled "half speed," and the vessel stole